Pen’s concerns aside, I refused to throw away my career for Uncle Abe. “Fine,” I snapped, finally. “I’ll go.” I stepped forward and made sure Gardner was looking into my eyes when I continued. “But you’re fooling yourself if you believe that Abraxas Prospero would ever help the cops. He’s setting us up.”
“And you’re fooling yourself if you believe I am naive enough not to know that.” She threw down the pen she’d been holding and rose from her desk. “When you’re done, you will file a detailed report to both me and Captain Eldritch.”
And with that, we were dismissed. As I turned to leave, my movements felt mechanical and a cold numbness descended over the part of my brain that allowed me to regret decisions.
“Don’t look so glum.” Morales nudged me with his elbow. “I’ll be there with you.”
I tried to force a smile, but knowing my partner would witness the shit show at Crowley accounted for a large portion of my dread.
I wanted to go hide in a bar and drink until alcohol poisoning gave me an excuse to delay the meeting the next day. But cases don’t care about your feelings. They don’t wait for you to find your nerve. They move forward, leaving you no choice but to keep up or get out of the game altogether. I had to just put one foot in front of the other and hope that Mez had some good news to share to brighten up this shitty day.
“What’s up?” Morales asked when we entered the lab.
Mez’s dreadlocks were pulled back into a ponytail and topped with a pair of goggles. Pair that with his lab coat, embroidered vest, and dark gray trousers, and he looked like an Asian mad scientist, which, the more I thought about it, he kind of was.
“I got the initial chem reports ready for the potions we found at the temple.”
Relieved to have a distraction from worrying about the impending meeting with Abe, I leaned back against one of the counters that didn’t contain any bubbling beakers or Bunsen burners. “And?”
“As expected, it’s definitely a sex magic potion. The bad news is it’s not your typical libido enhancement elixir.” He waved us over to look at the printouts in the folder. I scanned the list of active ingredients.
“Holy shit, why would they combine yohimbe and dulse?”
“Explain,” Morales said, squinting at the list like it was written in hieroglyphs.
“They’re often mixed into beverages to incite lust. Alone, each is powerful. But combined?” Mez shook his head. “It’s like pouring gas on a fire.”
Morales grinned. “Okay, so this potion gets people really horny. So?”
I shot him an annoyed look. “Morales, this potion won’t just make people horny. It will make them incredibly sexually aggressive.”
He glanced at Mez for confirmation. “Super rapey.” The wiz nodded. “Plus, yohimbe is toxic in high doses, which means this potion could also be deadly if it’s not administered with care.”
“Shit,” Morales said. “Anyone want to guess why Aphrodite might be developing a rape potion?”
I sighed. “As far as we’re concerned, the issue isn’t why she would make one, but what our perp intends to do with it.”
Mez shook his head. “Nothing good.”
“This would worry me on a normal month, but with the Blue Moon coming…” I trailed off as my mind provided a lovely horror movie of what a rape potion would do to a population of Adepts high on lunar madness.
“I think we need to go talk to Little Man,” Morales said. “Assuming we can find him.”
I nodded. “Mez, can you do me a favor and research if there are any known sex magic rites that require a potion like this?”
“Sure. You thinking another sex magic coven might have stolen it?”
I shrugged. “I’ll be shocked if some upstart is making a run for Aphrodite’s territory, but at this point anything is possible.”
“I’ll let you know what I find.”
The cell phone buzzed at my hip. The number on the ID was Babylon General Hospital. Frowning, I answered, “Prospero.”
“Is this Kate?”
I frowned. Almost no one involved in my job called me Kate. “Yeah.”
“This is Nurse Smith, from Babylon General—”
“Oh, hi!” She was the nurse who took care of Danny when he’d been in a coma. “How are you?”
“Wishing I was calling with better news, actually.”
My stomach dipped. “What happened?” My brain flashed up a montage of Danny in all sorts of horrifying accidents.
“Your friend was brought in a little while ago.” There was some shuffling of papers. “Penelope Griffin?”
My heart was suddenly busy trying to bust its way through my rib cage. Beside me, Morales reached out a hand and touched my arm, as if to silently ask if I was okay. I shook my head. “Is she okay?”
“Traffic accident. She’s stable but she’s pretty banged up. Once we got her triaged, she asked that we call you.”
My pulse slowed a fraction. “If she could ask for me, then she couldn’t be too bad off, right?”
“She’s been in and out of consciousness due to a concussion. We’re keeping her overnight to monitor her status.”
“It happened this morning?”
“Actually, the police who responded said the accident must have happened last night.”
A frigid chill crept across my skin. “What?”
“From what he could tell on the scene, the other car hit her and then both vehicles rolled into the old McLeod Quarry. A commuter spotted the wreckage this morning on the way to work.”
I closed my eyes. “Jesus.” The abandoned quarry site was about a mile from Pen’s apartment. She’d almost made it home last night, but instead she’d spent the night hurt and alone in a fucking ditch. “I’m on my way.”
It took three tries to disconnect the call. By the time I managed it, I was shaking so badly Morales had to take the phone from me and set it down.
Mez stood on the other side of me, so the two of them created a sort of human shield. “What happened,” he urged.
I told them what I knew, my voice an autopilot monotone.
When I finished, Mez nodded, like he was choosing his words carefully. “The nurse said she’s stable, right?”
I nodded jerkily.
“So why do you look like you just got the worst phone call of your life?”